Continuing examination of the grammatical, literary and historical evidence indicates
that the centurion's remarks about
Jesus in Mark 15,39 cannot be understood as a full Christian confession of Jesus' divine
sonship, and cannot be taken as a
direct challenge to any Roman emperor in particular. Jesus' identity in the gospel is
not revealed by the centurion, the
demons, the disciples or in the introduction to the gospel. It is made clear by God's
declaration that he truly is the Son (1,11;
9,7), and in the faith of the readers as they search for Jesus' presence in their own
community.

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in the hellenistic sense, or the son in a specifically
Christian sense, or possibly both. In all of these ways the translation Gods
son would reflect the various shades of meaning that may be present in Marks
word-order26.

At some point decisions must
be made for translation, unless a long footnote is to accompany the modern text. Is Jesus
in Mark 15,39 The Son of God, a son of God or a son of
god? Is it likely that Mark meant all at once, as Harner implies?

It is argued that it is
clear throughout the gospel who Jesus is. If that is correct, one wonders if the
confession of the centurion is so necessary at the end as it is often implied. There is
little question among scholars that Marks is a Son of God theology27; little question that
Mark and the readers in his church believed him to be so; one hopes that there is little
question about the faith of scholars who debate the significance of Mark 15,39. The
question after all, is not whether Mark believes and demonstrates that Jesus is the Son of
God, but if he does so in 15,39.

Certainly there are other
places where Jesus is designated the Son (with a definite article). But in every instance
other than the bat qôl at the Baptism and Transfiguration, they are all false
starts. The other references to Jesus sonship demonstrate who Jesus is not,
rather than who he is, even if they are with the definite article. The demons, for Mark,
are not ones who are worthy to make a definition of Jesus (1,24; 3,11; 5,7). Evil spirits
are not the ones who confess the true nature of Gods Son; they are rebuked and
silenced (1,25; 3,12)28.
Likewise, the High Priests statement about Jesus is also to be disregarded. Jesus
may agree that he is the Son of the Most Blessed (14,61), but he redefines it
in the correct terms with citations of Ps 110 and Dn 7,13. Jesus, furthermore, is not
the King of the Jews either; certainly not as Pilate sarcastically defines the
title (15,2.12.26), or the king the soldiers mockingly abuse in a parody of the salutation
to the emperor (15,18). Jesus is not even the Christ, or the King of
Israel as his religious detractors sneer out at him (15,32).

One scholar concludes that
[t]he issue, after all, is not what Marks readers thought of the centurion and
his faith; it is what they were to think of Jesus29. A good point and well stated. Yet, in
Marks story, it is important how the readers regard characters around Jesus. How
readers understand the witness of God, of John the Baptist, of King Herod, of Peter in
Caesarea Philippi, of Bartimaeus, has a powerful impact on their definition of who Jesus